Homework!

Might not have mentioned it on the blog, but since I bought the new machine, I am attending a HQ Sweet 16 group in the city. The group consist of people with HQ Sweet 16 sit downs and longarm machines. Very informative group and certainly have been full of encouragement with my initial difficulties with the machine.
The group works on different techniques from month to month and is in general about sharing information about all things related to quilting on these machines. I attended in the middle of the shadow trapunto sessions that ran over two months. Initially I was not going to do it, but the peer pressure is a bit much, so I made a start

I am using bastiste for the shadow effect and puffy polyester batting for the trapunto. This does not look like much but was very work intensive...had to mark the motif, then stitch around it with water soluble thread, then spent a long time cutting the batting neatly away. Then came the layering of the reddish cotton fabric, another layer of cotton and the finally the backing.

I used a pink Aurifil 50/2wt thread to stitch the motif down and fill in the rest. I used this also as a practice piece for getting used to do some more detailed stitching with the Sweet 16. Funny...half way through the pebbles  I remembered that the machine came with an open toe foot...completely forgot about that, so put that on and stitched away. Much better visibility!

Progress

Had to stitch a grid, of course... then did all sorts of fillers

And here is the finished little piece. Quite pleased with it, turned out nice. Not sure that I will use this often (bit of a lazy quilter really) but good little exercise.

 Added a bit of contrast to the editing...this is probably the closest to what the colour looks like.

Now I need to get on to some piecing to complete a quilt top, so I have something to quilt on. Hassle!

Karin